After the thumping win in the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP is now toying with the idea of going it alone in the Haryana Assembly election, due later this year.

After the thumping win in the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP is now toying with the idea of going it alone in the Haryana Assembly election, due later this year.

BJP leaders are reportedly upset with its ally, the Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC), for projecting its leader, Kuldeep Bishnoi, as the chief minister candidate in the run-up to the polls without consulting them. ‘Abki Bar Kuldeep Sarkar’ posters at his rallies have added to the resentment.

A BJP leader called this “a violation of the coalition dharma”. The two parties had come to an agreement, whereby the chief minister’s chair would be shared for an equal time — two-and-a-half years each — between them in the event of a win.

A section of the BJP leadership also feels that the agreement with the HJC needs to be seen in the light of the former’s landslide victory in the Lok Sabha elections.

“It is natural for the party to rethink its strategy,” said Dr Anil Jain, BJP’s national secretary and co in-charge for Haryana. Both parties had agreed to field candidates in 45 seats each, a point the BJP wants to reconsider.

Interestingly, the HJC failed to win a single seat in the general elections, despite a strong Narendra Modi wave that saw the BJP winning seven out of eight seats it contested in.

In case the parties spilt, it would be a repeat of 2009, when the BJP and the INLD had contested the Lok Sabha polls together, but parted ways before the Assembly polls.

A section of the party still wants to explore the possibility of an alliance with the INLD, but this idea does not have many takers within the BJP.

The top leadership of the regional party is convicted in a scam. Moreover, both parties did not share a particularly good rapport in the previous alliance.